The present invention relates to compounds and to the use of compounds in which the inhibition, regulation and/or modulation of signal transduction by kinases, in particular tyrosine kinases and/or serine/threonine kinases, plays a role, furthermore to pharmaceutical compositions which comprise these compounds, and to the use of the compounds for the treatment of kinase-induced diseases.
The present invention relates to compounds in which the inhibition, regulation and/or modulation, in particular, of CHK1 and CHK2 kinase and of the cell volume-regulated human kinase h-sgk (human serum and glucocorticoid dependent kinase or SGK) plays a role, furthermore to pharmaceutical compositions which comprise these compounds, and to the use of the compounds for the treatment of CHK1-, CHK2- and SGK-induced diseases.
Cell cycle checkpoints are regulatory pathways that control the sequence and timing of cell cycle transitions. They ensure that important events, such as DNA replication and chromosome segregation, are completed with high reliability. The control of these cell cycle checkpoints is an important determinant of the manner in which tumour cells respond to many chemotherapies and radiation. Many effective cancer therapies work by causing DNA damage; however, resistance to these agents remains a considerable limitation in the treatment of cancer. There are various mechanisms of drug resistance; an important one is attributed to the prevention of cell cycle progression through the control of critical activation of a checkpoint pathway that arrests the cell cycle to provide time for repair and induces the transcription of genes to facilitate repair, thereby avoiding immediate cell death.
There are two of these checkpoints in the cell cycle—the G1/S checkpoint which is controlled by p53, and the G2/M checkpoint, which is monitored by the Ser/Thr kinase checkpoint kinase 1 (CHK1).
By abrogating checkpoint arrests at, for example, the G2 checkpoint, it may be possible to synergistically improve tumour cell death induced by DNA damage and circumvent resistance, (Shyjan et al, U.S. Pat. No. 6,723,498 (2004)). Human CHK1 plays a role in controlling cell cycle arrest by phosphorylating the phosphatase cdc25 on serine 216, which may possibly be involved in preventing activation of cdc2/cyclin B and initiating mitosis. (Sanchez et al. Science, 277:1497 (1997)) Inhibition of CHK1 should therefore enhance the action of DNA-damaging substances by initiating mitosis before DNA repair is complete and thereby causing tumour cell death.
An approach to the design of chemosensitisers which abrogate the G2/M checkpoint consists in developing inhibitors of the key G2/M regulatory kinase CHK1. The fact that this approach works has been demonstrated in a number of proof-of-concept studies (Koniaras et al., Oncogene, 2001, 20:7453; Luo et al., Neoplasia, 2001, 3:411; Busby et al., Cancer Res., 2000, 60:2108; Jackson et al., Cancer Res., 2000, 60:566).
A further essential checkpoint kinase that may be mentioned, which plays a crucial role in p53-dependent apoptosis, is CHK2. The inhibition of CHK2 can protect normal sensitive tissue against chemotherapeutic agents (B.-B S. Zhou et al., Progress in Cell Cycle Research, Vol. 5, 413-421, 2003).
It can be shown for the compounds according to the invention that they inhibit the checkpoint kinase activity. It can be shown for checkpoint kinase inhibitors that they enable the cells to advance inappropriately to the metaphase of mitosis, which results in apoptosis of the cells concerned, and therefore have antiproliferative actions. The compounds according to the invention can be used for the treatment of neoplastic disease. The compounds according to the invention and salts thereof can be used against neoplastic diseases, such as carcinoma of the brain, breast, ovaries, lung, intestine, prostate, skin or other tissue, and against leukaemia and lymphomas, tumours of the central and peripheral nervous system and other types of tumour, such as melanoma, sarcoma, fibrosarcoma and osteosarcoma. The compounds according to the invention are also suitable for the treatment of other proliferative diseases. The compounds according to the invention can also be used in combination with a broad range of DNA-damaging agents, but can also be used as individual substance.
The present invention therefore relates to the use of the compounds according to the invention for the treatment of diseases or conditions in which inhibition of CHK1 and/or CHK2 activity is advantageous.
Like CHK1 and CHK2, SGK belongs to the serine/threonine kinases.
The present invention furthermore relates to the use of the compounds according to the invention, where the inhibition, regulation and/or modulation of signal transduction of the cell volume-regulated human kinase H-SGK (human serum and glucocorticoid dependent kinase or SGK) plays a role, for the treatment of SGK-induced diseases.
SGKs with the isoforms SGK-1, SGK-2 and SGK-3 are a serine/threonine protein kinase family (WO 02/17893).
The compounds according to the invention are inhibitors of SGK-1. They may furthermore be inhibitors of SGK-2 and/or SGK-3.
The present invention thus relates to the use of the compounds according to the invention which inhibit, regulate and/or modulate SGK signal transduction, to compositions which comprise these compounds, and to processes for the use thereof for the treatment of SGK-induced diseases and complaints, such as diabetes (for example diabetes mellitus, diabetic nephropathy, diabetic neuropathy, diabetic angiopathy and microangiopathy), obesity, metabolic syndrome (dyslipidaemia), systemic and pulmonary hypertonia, cardiovascular diseases (for example cardiac fibroses after myocardial infarction, cardiac hypertrophy and cardiac insufficiency, arteriosclerosis) and renal diseases (for example glomerulosclerosis, nephrosclerosis, nephritis, nephropathy, electrolyte excretion disorder), generally in fibroses and inflammatory processes of any type (for example liver cirrhosis, pulmonary fibrosis, fibrosing pancreatitis, rheumatism and arthroses, Crohn's disease, chronic bronchitis, radiation fibrosis, sclerodermatitis, cystic fibrosis, scarring, Alzheimer's disease).
The compounds according to the invention can also inhibit the growth of tumour cells and tumour metastases and are therefore suitable for tumour therapy.
The compounds according to the invention are furthermore used for the treatment of coagulopathies, such as, for example, dysfibrinogenaemia, hypoproconvertinaemia, haemophilia B, Stuart-Prower defect, prothrombin complex deficiency, consumption coagulopathy, hyperfibrinolysis, immuno-coagulopathy or complex coagulopathies, and also in neuronal excitability, for example epilepsy. The compounds according to the invention can also be employed therapeutically in the treatment of glaucoma or a cataract. The compounds according to the invention are furthermore used in the treatment of bacterial infections and in anti-infection therapy. The compounds according to the invention can also be employed therapeutically for increasing learning ability and attention. In addition, the compounds according to the invention counter cell ageing and stress and thus increase life expectancy and fitness in the elderly.
The compounds according to the invention are furthermore used in the treatment of tinnitus.
The identification of small compounds which inhibit, regulate and/or modulate SGK signal transduction is therefore desirable and an aim of the present invention.
It has been found that the compounds according to the invention and salts thereof have very valuable pharmacological properties while being well tolerated.
Thus, they also exhibit SGK-inhibiting properties.
The present invention therefore relates to compounds according to the invention as medicaments and/or medicament active ingredients in the treatment and/or prophylaxis of the said diseases and to the use of compounds according to the invention for the preparation of a pharmaceutical for the treatment and/or prophylaxis of the said diseases and also to a process for the treatment of the said diseases which comprises the administration of one or more compounds according to the invention to a patient in need of such an administration.
The host or patient may belong to any mammal species, for example a primate species, particularly humans; rodents, including mice, rats and hamsters; rabbits; horses, cows, dogs, cats, etc. Animal models are of interest for experimental investigations, where they provide a model for the treatment of a human disease.
For identification of a signal transduction pathway and for detection of interactions between various signal transduction pathways, various scientists have developed suitable models or model systems, for example cell culture models (for example Khwaja et al., EMBO, 1997, 16, 2783-93) and models of transgenic animals (for example White et al., Oncogene, 2001, 20, 7064-7072). For the determination of certain stages in the signal transduction cascade, interacting compounds can be utilised in order to modulate the signal (for example Stephens et al., Biochemical J., 2000, 351, 95-105). The compounds according to the invention can also be used as reagents for testing kinase-dependent signal transduction pathways in animals and/or cell culture models or in the clinical diseases mentioned in this application.
Measurement of the kinase activity is a technique which is well known to the person skilled in the art. Generic test systems for the determination of the kinase activity using substrates, for example histone (for example Alessi et al., FEBS Lett. 1996, 399, 3, pages 333-338) or the basic myelin protein, are described in the literature (for example Campos-González, R. and Glenney, Jr., J. R. 1992, J. Biol. Chem. 267, page 14535).
Various assay systems are available for identification of kinase inhibitors. In the scintillation proximity assay (Sorg et al., J. of. Biomolecular Screening, 2002, 7, 11-19) and the flashplate assay, the radioactive phosphorylation of a protein or peptide as substrate is measured using γATP. In the presence of an inhibitory compound, a reduced radioactive signal, or none at all, can be detected. Furthermore, homogeneous time-resolved fluorescence resonance energy transfer (HTR-FRET) and fluorescence polarisation (FP) technologies are useful as assay methods (Sills et al., J. of Biomolecular Screening, 2002, 191-214).
Other non-radioactive ELISA assay methods use specific phospho antibodies (phospho ABs). The phospho AB only binds the phosphorylated substrate. This binding can be detected by chemoluminescence using a second peroxidase-conjugated antisheep antibody (Ross et al., Biochem. J., 2002, 366, 977-981).